NEVADA – Well known Hindu statesman Rajan Zed spoke about religion in general and Hinduism in particular to a packed house of people belonging to different religions and denominations at “88 Cups Coffee and Tea” in Minden (Nevada, USA) on February 24 evening.

New Delhi, Feb 28 (ANI): Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that to make the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy more user friendly, all prior regulations and guidelines have been consolidated into one comprehensive document, which is reviewed every six months.

LONDON – A Muslim teaching assistant in Britain has claimed that he ‘felt like jumping in front of a bus’ after being racially abused by his pupils, and was forced to file a police complaint after a student had threatened to rape his wife and children.

LAHORE – Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said that there is no place in the party for those who are trying to undermine the party by joining former President Pervez Musharraf.

ISLAMABAD – Two days after expelling the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from its Punjab government, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has said that it would continue monitoring the federal government’s measures to curb corruption.

NEW DELHI – Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that to make the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy more user friendly, all prior regulations and guidelines have been consolidated into one comprehensive document, which is reviewed every six months.

NEW DELHI – Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today announced that an international award with a prize money of Rs. One crore will be instituted for promoting values of Universal Brotherhood in the memory of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

NEW DELHI – Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said the regional rural banks will be strengthened to enable them to maintain a Capital to Risk Weighted Asset Ratio (CRAR) of at least nine per cent as on March 31.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s calm and diplomatic response towards the massive unrest in Libya, which had left even its reliable supporters stunned, was due to the warnings given by its diplomats in Tripoli saying that forceful messages from Washington could “endanger the security of American citizens” in the disturbed oil rich country.

LONDON – Military hardware worth hundreds of millions of pounds, which were supplied to Libya by European and British arms firms, are now being used by the Gaddafi regime in a crackdown against pro-democracy protestors, an EU document has revealed.

The European Union’s latest arms control report, released in January this year, said that … Read more >>.

NEW DELHI – Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said inflation continues to remain a concern, but exuded confidence that the monetary policy of Reserve Bank of India will lead to reduction in inflation numbers in the coming months.

NEW DELHI – A Massachusetts company, Joule Unlimited, has claimed that it can produce diesel using the same ingredients that make grass grow.

A biotechnology company, based in Cambridge, has created a genetically engineered organism capable of producing diesel fuel or ethanol, which can be used to run cars and jet engines, reports English.news.cn.

MONROVIA – The Liberian Foreign Ministry has said there is no record of Upjit Singh Sachdeva, India’s Honorary Consul General in Liberia, of seeking or being granted political asylum by its government.

It described media reports and documents being circulated in India confirming Sachdeva’s move to seek asylum as fake and forged.

WASHINGTON – Being mindful, which means being open, receptive and attentive to whatever is unfolding in the present moment, can mitigate the fear of dying, new research shows.

George Mason University psychology professor Todd Kashdan wanted to find out if mindful people had different attitudes about dying, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology …. Source : Gaea News Network.

LONDON – The trial sessions of a Bangladeshi British Airways computer engineer who had plotted to blow up a plane have revealed that Anwar al-Awlaki, the American born leader of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is plotting to send operatives to Britain to launch attacks.

NEW DELHI – Nearly seventy percent Chinese people preferred imported milk powder and had little confidence in domestic brands because of food safety concerns, even though the latest official test report said there is “no significant difference” between domestic dairy products and their overseas rivals.

MOSCOW/TEHRAN – In a statement, Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, which is building the reactor in Bushehr, Iran, said it found damage to one of the reactor’s four main cooling pumps.

JOHANNESBURG – A United Nations torture investigator has confirmed that he had written the Government of Zimbabwe to express concern about allegations that state security agents had assaulted the 45 activists who, after watching reports of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, were recently detained and charged with treason.

LONDON – Woolwich Crown Court has convicted Rajib Karim, an Asian-origin British Airways computer engineer who had plotted to blow up a plane, of four terror charges, including sharing information of use to hate groups.

TRIPOLI – A secret video filmed on a mobile phone has revealed Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son calling opponents of his father’s regime as ‘b******s’ and brandishing a semi-automatic rifle in the air while simultaneously urging supporters to fight for their homeland ‘until the last bullet’.

NEW DELHI – Union Minister of Culture Kumari Selja Tuesday said her ministry was working on a proposal to set up five new regional centres of the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD) at Bengaluru and Kolkata and in Maharashtra/Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast.

NEW DELHI – A Delhi court on Tuesday sent former Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee (OC) Chairman Suresh Kalmadi’s key aides Lalit Bhanot and V.K. Verma to Tihar Jail under 14-day judicial custody in connection with financial irregularities in a contract with a Swiss company.

LAHORE – Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will continue to play democratic role in Punjab.

During his interaction with Punjab Governor Latif Khosa and Interior Minister Rehman Malik in Karchi, Zardari said the PPP did not believe in ‘lotacracy’. (term used to describe how Pakistani politicians had a … Read more : Zardari says PPP will play democratic role in Pak Punjab.

LAHORE – Raja Riaz, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader in Punjab has claimed that his party has “documentary proof” of the so-called “good governance” of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and will bring facts before the people.

CHABUA – The Indian Air Force Tuesday inducted a second squadron of its frontline Sukhoi-SU30 combat jets in the northeast as part of a strategic deployment of advanced assets close to the Chinese border, an officer said.

NEW DELHI – The Chinese labour authority is trying to delay the retirement age for women, according to a top official report.

The document, which was issued by the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said the possible change to women’s retirement age may be done alongside other improvements to the rights of working women, reports …. Source : China mulls delaying women’s retirement age.

NEW DELHI – The Australia-India Institute today announced its new programme with Indian NGO Asha and the Nossal Institute for Global Health called A New India-Australia Partnership to Support the Aspirations of Delhi’s Urban Poor.

WASHINGTON – The United States is reportedly developing a new technology to safeguard its ports from being attacked by terrorists and smugglers.

America, which is the global hub of commerce, receives goods from all over the world. Over 11 million cargo containers enter the United States each year, but the real danger lies below the …. Source : Gaea News Network.

NEW YORK – Amid unrest in Libya, where on one side the United Nations has condemned the Muammar al-Qaddafi regime for its crackdown on pro-democracy protestors, the organisation’s Human Rights Council is poised adopt a report praising the oil rich country for its human rights records.

KARACHI – Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder-leader Altaf Hussain has called upon the Pakistan Army to save the beleaguered country.

Making a telephonic address from London at the 24th foundation day of the MQM Labour Division, Altaf said he was inviting the army to save Pakistan, and stressed that he had never met the army generals … Read more »»».

WASHINGTON – Pakistan’s financial managers and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission are set to start the much-awaited fifth review of the economy on Tuesday (today), upon whose successful completion Pakistan would receive 3.6 billion dollars- the remaining portion of the 11.3-billion-dollar Stand-By-Arrangement (SBA).

WASHINGTON – Most participants of the US-Pakistan Leaders Forum, which was convened by the US-Muslim Engagement Initiative- a non-governmental, non-partisan collaboration of four US-based organizations, agreed that the Pakistani media was “guilty of churning out a steady diet of anti-American conspiracy theories and rhetoric,” noted South Asian affairs analyst Lisa Curtis has said.

NEW DELHI – External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday said the vacuation of Indians from strife-torn Libya is going on smoothly, and added that over 3,500 people would have returned home by Wednesday.

NEW DELHI – The Indian Air Force (IAF) is ready to evacuate, if called on to do so, the Indians stranded in Libya by the violent anti-government protests in the north African country, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said Tuesday.

IMPHAL – The Central Government is leaving no stones unturned in its effort to develop the northeastern region. Recently it excluded Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram from the protected area permit to promote tourism in the region.

NEW DELHI – Grappling with a high rate of price rice, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today expressed concern that increasing prices of crude oil and other commodities in global markets could add to inflationary pressure in the country.

NEW DELHI – The Australia India Institute has announced the appointment of its inaugural Director, Professor Amitabh Mattoo.

Professor Mattoo is one of India’s leading thinkers and writers on international relations. He is currently a Professor of Disarmament Studies at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament at New Delhi’s

GUWAHATI – The end of harvest season is marked by the celebration of the seed sowing festival “Lui-Ngai-Ni” by Naga tribes in the northeast by offering prayers to the almighty for a prosperous harvest ahead.

AGARTALA – With the northeastern state of Tripura taking to floriculture, it has given the youth an opportunity to become not only able entrepreneurs, but also makes them able them able enough to contribute significantly to the economy of the State.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly taking the help of a private spy network operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan to investigate the killing of 10 medical aid workers in northern Afghanistan.

The New York Times quoted American officials and private contractors as saying that the spy network, managed by a former top [..] Read the original article: here.

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the United States have been given a reality check about the 2012 elections in that President Barack Obama will be a lot tougher to defeat this year as compared to last year.

KATHMANDU – A previously unknown Himalayan cave culture has been uncovered through gruelling archaeological research in upper Mustang, Nepal.

According to the Department of Archaeology (DOA), highly skilled archaeologists and other experts came up with the remains of an ancient cave people, their arts and manuscripts, after an extensive 5-year search.OA said researchers discovered the … Read more >>.